a stretch of mortal time
by shadesunrider13
Summary: Sometimes all the careful planning in the world, all the perfectly forged weapons and hours of training, all the courage and bravery and strength, aren't enough to save a life. Urthstripe and his lieutenants grapple with hard questions in the wake of a tragedy they all had a part in creating. Part 2 of Shifting the Sun: Tales from Salamandastron.


Sometimes all the careful planning in the world, all the perfectly forged weapons and hours of training, all the courage and bravery and strength, isn't enough to save a life. Urthstripe knows this, of course. He knows that he can't save everybeast. He knows that atrocities are committed every day, all the world over, and that one life isn't enough to bring them all to an end. But there's a long way between knowing something in your mind and knowing it bone-deep, so that your body reacts before you have time to think about it. And every time one of his Long Patrollers dies, Urthstripe is reminded all over again that it's a distance he might never be able to cross.

It was a simple thing, really. A routine patrol, tracking a searat ship making its slow, meandering way down the coast from the north. Salamandastron doesn't have the capability to attack searats or slavers who haven't made landfall, but Urthstripe likes to know who's passing through his territory, so he sent a pair of Long Patrollers to track it . They were young, energetic, desperate and excited for their first solo mission. Urthstripe remembers smiling as he watched them set off across the sands, fast and strong. He knows exactly what he was thinking about as they disappeared past the horizon – he was wondering if he was ever that young, if a chance to chase after a ship that will never make shore was ever all that it took to make him happy. Except the searat ship did make shore, a hundred leagues or so south of Salamandastron. And the two young Long Patrollers who went out to chase it never came home.

He went with the Patrollers sent to retrieve the bodies. Carried them both all the way back to the mountain. Dug their graves himself, deep and sure, so that no vermin or scavengers would ever be able to disturb their resting places. He carved their headstones out of smooth boulders he dragged up from the tideline. The burial, the funeral feast – he hasn't slept since the Patrollers failed to set their signal fires. Once the last shovelfuls of sandy dirt have been placed over the bodies of the two young hares, Urthstripe finds the biggest barrel of southern ale in the cellars, carts it up to the forge room, and begins the long process of getting solidly drunk.

He's halfway through the barrel when he hears pounding on the forge-room door. Urthstripe lifts his face out of the rough-hewn mug of ale and looks blurrily towards the source of the sound. "Who's there?"

"Me, milord," Oxeye booms from the other side of the door. "Sapwood's here, too."

"What do you want?"

"Well, sir," Sapwood pipes up, "me and Oxeye, we went lookin' for that barrel of southern ale down in the cellars, and wouldn't y'know it, sir, somebeast else had gotten there first."

Urthstripe resists the urge to let his face fall back into the mug of ale. "What a pity."

"You wouldn't happen to know who's got it, would you now, milord?" Oxeye asks. "Whoever took it must be a right strong beast, wouldn't y'think?"

Urthstripe has to hand it to his sergeant and lieutenant – they're quite perceptive. He nudges the barrel of ale with one footpaw and sets it sloshing. There's still plenty left, and besides, he's not the only one with two pawfuls of guilt over what happened to the two young hares. He may have given the orders that got them killed, but Oxeye recommended them for the mission, and Sapwood trained them both from the time they were leverets. They could probably use a drink, too.

"Come in," he calls, and the door bangs open to allow the two hares through.

Oxeye makes it in first, skids to a stop at the sight of Urthstripe on the floor with the barrel of ale a few feet away. Sapwood runs into him and the two collapse in a heap on the floor across from Urthstripe. Urthstripe gestures at the barrel. "I hope the two of you brought your own mugs. Help yourself."

It turns out that neither of them have brought their own mugs, and after a few sips from Urthstripe's mug, neither of them are inclined to get up off the floor and go retrieve their own. The hares share the mug. Urthstripe drinks directly from the barrel. Urthstripe's head is feeling foggy, and his emotions come slowly and wrapped in layer after layer of alcohol that does just a good enough job of numbing him to keep him drinking. Urthstripe's quiet. But Sapwood and Oxeye can't seem to stop talking.

"I knew Mistpaw from when she was just a babe," Sapwood says, hiccupping. "Used to hold her when she couldn't sleep."

Oxeye leans against the barrel. "You should've seen how excited Redfern was when I told him I was recommendin' him for that mission. I wish I'd never thought of him."

"It isn't your fault," Urthstripe says into the resulting silence. "Those blasted searats would have killed whoever I sent. It's my fault they're dead."

The hares exchange a drunken glance. "No, milord."

"Yes," Urthstripe says, looking up and locking eyes with Oxeye first, and then Sapwood. "It was my foolish insistence that we track the searat ships. If I hadn't done so, they'd still be alive, both of them."

"It's a good idea to keep track of the searats," Sapwood says. He lets out a meaty burp and makes a face. "Searats are murderin', slavin' scum, and we save more lives if we keep an eye on them."

"I don't know about you, Sap, but I'd rather somebeast I didn't know died than somebeast I've known my whole life. Maybe that makes me one of the bad ones, but I don't care."

"I can't afford not to care," Urthstripe says. "The Lord of Salamandastron is charged with protecting the entire western shore from searats and vermin, and I can't choose the Long Patrol's lives over the lives of every creature who lives in Mossflower. That's not how this works."

"Beggin' your pardon, milord, but how do you know how this works?" Oxeye asks.

"I don't know how," Urthstripe says. "I just do."

According to legend, Rawnblade Widestripe once massacred an entire searat ship, wading out into the ocean to bring it down and tear its occupants to pieces. Three of his hares had been murdered, and Rawnblade wanted revenge. He was mad with it, the stories say. So mad that he abandoned Salamandastron to sail across the ocean and kill the searat king. Legend says he was courageous. Urthstripe thinks he was a fool. A fool for letting revenge blind him to his task, a fool for letting revenge inspire him to abandon it. Does Urthstripe himself want to chase that searat ship, tow it to shore, fill it with corpses and set it afire? Of course he does. With every beat of his heart his blood screams for it, screams to make them pay for what they did to his poor young hares.

But no amount of dead searats will bring Mistpaw and Redfern back, will give them the long lives they should have had, would have had if there was any justice in this world. But Urthstripe long since learned that there is no justice in the world. North to south and east to west, it's all the same. No justice but what you mete out yourself, with a heavy heart and a heavier paw.

"Do y'think they'll be angry?" Sapwood asks, jolting Urthstripe out of his musings. "When we see them in the Dark Forest?"

Urthstripe knows what he's supposed to say. No, of course not; they knew what they were getting into; they died doing their duty; they won't blame us for what happened to them. But he can't bring himself to say those things. They were so young. They died in agony. Of course they'll be angry when he sees them. If he ever makes it to the Dark Forest. Urthstripe's heard the stories, knows that all goodbeasts are supposed to go to the Dark Forest when they die, but he has a hard time believing that someone with as much blood on their paws as he has will make the grade.

"Don't borrow worry," Oxeye says to Sapwood. "You won't be headed to the Dark Forest for seasons yet."

Sapwood slouches down, chin resting on his chest. "Seasons longer than those two ever got to live. Where's the justice in that?"

Oxeye doesn't answer. Maybe he doesn't know how. Urthstripe doesn't answer, either. Instead he hefts the ale barrel to his lips, tilts it back, and drains the remaining alcohol. He'll regret this in the morning, he's certain; when he has to redraw the lines between himself and the Long Patrol, when he has to go back to being a Lord and a leader, when he has to show strength instead of letting his rage and grief show. He'll regret it tomorrow. But he'll never regret it more than he regrets the moment when Mistpaw and Redfern disappeared over the horizon, the moment when he lost sight of them – when he lost sight of them, and turned away.


End file.
